Onegav

I’ve wanted to upgrade my long lens for a while now, and finally its become a reality! I’ve traded my previous long lens in for a Canon EF100-400mm f4.5/5.6L IS USM, and I have to say its a game changer for me.

Its an old lens now, first released in 1998, and the mark 2 version is on the market now (selling at roughly three times the price of the mark 1) but it fits what I want aboslutely perfectly. Clearly it has a long focal range, but also its the first lens I’ve owned with image stabilisation, which at 400mm on a crop sensor camera is an absolute blessing.

Its got an unusual “push pull” focal adjustment, rather than a twist, and I really like it, especially when trying to capture birds in flight; coupled with the really fast focusing it means I can track a bird at 100mm and them zoom in to 400mm to frame the shot.

Its heavy, way heavier than any other lens I’ve got, and I can image I’ll notice that after a full day out with it, but thats thanks to the rock solid build and metal in the construction, so on balance I would not change it.

Something else I’ve noticed is the colour reproduction, its much more vivid than I’m used to with my old long lens, and whilst I haven’t perfected it yet I have had to tweak my pre-set in Lightroom to compensate for my style of image.

You can see the colour in the sky above when I was out on friday evening phtotographing a starling murmuration; something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but felt I didn’t have the tools for the job. I’ve actually tuned the pinks and blues in the sky down a lot, so you get the idea of how vivid the colour reporoducton actually is!

Now, I couldn’t have a new long lens in my camera bag, and not go back to visit those beautiful Green Parakeets, could I………… so today me, Holly and the girls went over to the park for a go on the swings and the chance of spotting and photographing the Parakeets.

They were hard to find today, but eventually I spotted one dissapearing into a hole high in a tree. I waited and waited and waited, hoping it would poke its head out again, and as you can see eventually it did just that.

Thanks to the speed of my new lens, I even managed to capture a nice shot of the green machine in flight – something I have done before but never as cleanly as this.

Finally, I took a shot of a duck, having just dipped his beak in the water for a quick drink. The colour, sharpness and lovely shine on its beak were just lovely, even in the relatively low light conditions we had today.

I am so pleased with my new lens, I cant really put it into words! I’ve only used it twice so far, the results of which you can see here, so I’m really looking forward to getting to know it more; I have a feeling me and this bit of glass are going to get on great together!

Expect a little video in the next couple of weeks, where I’ll take you out with me to show you what this lens is all about, and hopefully capture a few photographs of some wildlife.